Reemergent metal-insulator transitions in manganites exposed with spatial confinement

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Jun 20;100(24):247204. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.247204. Epub 2008 Jun 17.

Abstract

The metal-insulator transition is characterized as a single peak in the temperature-dependent resistivity measurements; exceptions to this have never been seen in any single crystal material system. We show that by reducing a single crystal manganite thin film to a wire with a width comparable to the mesoscopic phase-separated domains inherent in the material, a second and robust metal-insulator transition peak appears in the resistivity versus temperature measurement. This new observation suggests that spatial confinement is a promising route for the discovery of emergent physical phenomena in complex oxides.